CyberWire Daily - Michael DeBolt: From acting to cyber. [Intelligence] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

Chief intelligence officer at Intel 471, Michael shares his story where he started as an actor and quickly changed over to intelligence and what the transition was like for him. Michael grew up wanting to be an actor and even was able to land some acting jobs, after going into the Marine Corps he decided to leave acting behind and start a new path in his journey. He says looking for a purpose really helped to shape him, saying "looking back on it, I feel like my life purpose has really been all about kind of this relentless pursuit of justice" and how the risks in his life has helped to right the wrongs of the world. We thank Michael for sharing his story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. and VPNs, yet breaches continue to rise by an 18% year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools expand your attack surface with public-facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever with AI tools. It's time to rethink your security. Thank you. More at zscaler.com slash security. Hello, my name is Michael DeBolt. I'm the Chief Intelligence Officer at Intel 471. It's funny, and I'm not sure how many people know this about me, but they're going to know now. I grew up wanting to be an actor, actually.

I went to a creative arts academy in elementary school, and I just had this idea of performing on stage. I also had other dreams of becoming a baseball player and stuff like that. stage. I also had other dreams of becoming a baseball player and stuff like that. But cyber and technology was never really part of my mindset, but that's kind of how I grew up. I actually had a minor scholarship to go to Western Michigan University to do theater, and then 9-11 hit. And I quickly realized that there was an opportunity for me to serve my country in a very meaningful way. And so I made the very natural shift from wanting to become an actor to now going into the Marine Corps as an infantryman within a very short period of time. short period of time. For whatever reason, looking back on it, I feel like my life purpose has really been all about kind of this relentless pursuit of justice. I've taken some of those things that I've learned and those qualities and I've been able to translate them into what I do now. But first thing I did was go into the Marine Corps right after high school. And after that, fast forward two years, I was a direct care counselor for children who were

abandoned by their parents. Fast forward when I got out of the Marine Corps, I remember one day I was driving down the highway and I saw this billboard for Ferris State University and they were advertising for a brand new degree called Information Security and Intelligence. It was a perfect combination of technology, security, and law enforcement. I ended up getting an emphasis on digital forensics and did some volunteer work at a local county sheriff's office. And then I ended up getting a position as a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. I spent eight years as a special agent with NCIS working predominantly cyber espionage and cyber crime cases. I was actually the first one to stand up an undercover operation targeting cyber

criminals who were targeting the Department of Defense. So a lot of effort and emphasis had been focused on tracking espionage actors. How are they stealing our secrets, the Russians and the Chinese? I realized there was a gap and no one was really looking at the cyber crime threat against the Department of Defense. And then from there, I went to Interpol in Singapore, and that's where I was the U.S. representative there and helped to build out and lead their cyber fusion center, and then ended up coming to Intel 471, which is where I'm at right now. So my philosophy as a leader is actually very simple.

It's all about being a servant leader for me. I'm far from perfect in my pursuit of this, but it's really centered around genuine humility. Maybe I don't know the answer or I don't have the best solution. And that can be hard sometimes because you want to project this image of kind of having it all together, right? You want to instill trust in your team because when your people see that you're willing to admit you don't have it all together as a leader and that you're genuinely relying on them

as individuals and also as a collective team, that they're more willing to step out of their comfort zone. I feel like whenever I've fallen in the past and made some serious mistakes is when I've tried to take it all on myself and tried to kind of unilaterally make a decision. Of course, you know, being an executive, you have to make some tough decisions, but that doesn't mean that you don't ask for input from your team and take a pause and just say, hang on a minute. There's some additional perspective here that I need in order to make this pretty big and tough decision. Again, realizing that sure, it's going to be ultimately up to me to make the decision

and I'll take that one. But I want to make sure that the decision is, if we can reach consensus, great. But if not, at least everyone's input has been genuinely heard and acknowledged. I want to wake up every single day and do compelling work and have as much scale and impact as I possibly can with my two hands. And I have to realize that there's only so much that I can personally do. So if people can look back on me and say, you know, he was the one that enabled me or equipped me to make an impact on my personal work. And then that cascaded down to my team's work and then it's just this multiplication

of a number of different people acting with their own skills and their own abilities to make a change in this world, then if I can be that force multiplier and help with that, that would be a great result for me. And now a message from Black Cloak.

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